In Summary

Swinburne University of Technology has received $3.3 million from the Australian Research Council (ARC) to undertake innovative research across a range of disciplines, including a project to reduce uncertainty in predicting extreme winds and waves used to design and operate coastal and offshore facilities.

The successful projects were announced by the Federal Minister for Education and Training, Senator Simon Birmingham.

“Pure research has an important role to play in the Australian research landscape as new knowledge gathered through basic research often leads to commercial application,” Senator Birmingham said.

“A strong investment in high-quality research will drive innovation, secure the jobs of the future, improve the health of our community, protect our environment and ensure our researchers can compete on the international stage.”

Swinburne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development) Professor Aleksandar Subic was pleased that the winning grants covered a broad range of Swinburne’s research capability.

“This is a very pleasing outcome in an extremely competitive research funding environment. Our researchers have been successful in winning an impressive number of ARC grants in this round for their high quality fundamental research across a wide range of disciplines. This reflects a balanced research portfolio at Swinburne,” Professor Subic, said.

Discovery Project funding in 2016 totalling $2,588,541 has been awarded to the following Swinburne projects led by:

  • Professor Karl Glazebrook – The fundamental physics of galaxy formation
  • Professor Ian Young and Alex Babanin – Predicting environmental extremes in a period of climate change
  • Professor Guoxing Lu – Sandwich structures with folded core under impact and blast loading
  • Professor Leon Sterling – One size does not fit all: Individuals’ emotions in technology development
  • Professor Duncan Forbes – Low mass galaxies and the growth of galaxy halos
  • Professor Chengfei Liu –Identifying and tracking influential events in large social networks
  • Professor Klaus Neumann – Protecting aliens: An Australian legal and political history 1945-1989

Dr Peng Wang from the Centre for Transformative Innovation has been awarded a $373,500 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award for his project that aims to improve our understanding of how social networks affect social and economic behaviour.

Professor Julian Thomas has been awarded a $367,000 Linkage Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities grant for a project that aims to enable efficient universal access to historical and archived policy material to provide critical research infrastructure that supports innovative approaches to Australian public policy research.

Additionally, the following Swinburne researchers are involved on the following successful ARC grants submitted through collaborating institutions:

LIEF 2016:

  • Professor Elena Ivanova, Wollongong University
  • Professor Saulius Juodkazis and Professor Paul Stoddart, University of Melbourne
  • Professor Guoxing Lu, Monash University
  • Professor Matthew Bailes, Curtin University
  • Associate Professor Christopher Blake and Professor Karl Glazebrook, University of Western Australia
  • Professor Kathleen Hulse, University of Adelaide
  • Professor Jeremy Mould and Dr Alan Duffy, University of Melbourne
  • Professor Michael Murphy, University of New South Wales

Discovery Projects 2016

  • Professor Linda Blackall, University of Melbourne
  • Dr Peggy Chan, Monash University
  • Associate Professor Christopher Blake, Australian National University

Lists of all successful grant applicants are available from the ARC website.

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